Mixed Waste Landfill Integrated Demonstration; Technology summary

The mission of the Mixed Waste Landfill Integrated Demonstration (MWLID) is to demonstrate, in contaminated sites, new technologies for clean-up of chemical and mixed waste landfills that are representative of many sites throughout the DOE Complex and the nation. When implemented, these new technologies promise to characterize and remediate the contaminated landfill sites across the country that resulted from past waste disposal practices. Characterization and remediation technologies are aimed at making clean-up less expensive, safer, and more effective than current techniques. This will be done by emphasizing in-situ technologies. Most important, MWLID`s success will be shared with other Federal, state, and local governments, and private companies that face the important task of waste site remediation. MWLID will demonstrate technologies at two existing landfills. Sandia National Laboratories` Chemical Waste Landfill received hazardous (chemical) waste from the Laboratory from 1962 to 1985, and the Mixed-Waste Landfill received hazardous and radioactive wastes (mixed wastes) over a twenty-nine year period (1959-1988) from various Sandia nuclear research programs. Both landfills are now closed. Originally, however, the sites were selected because of Albuquerque`s and climate and the thick layer of alluvial deposits that overlay groundwater approximately 480 feet below the landfills. This thick layer of ``dry`` soils, gravel, and clays promised to be a natural barrier between the landfills and groundwater